


Brave New World

by auroreanrave



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avenger Bucky, Everybody Is A Hero, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Skinny Steve Roggers, Skinny!Steve, heroics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is an Avenger and saves Steve's life during the Battle of New York.</p>
<p>Or: how Steve learned to love the Avengers and embrace his heroism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A strange AU fic which sees Steve as a skinny waiter-slash-aspiring-artist, caught in the Battle of New York, and who runs into Bucky Barnes as the frozen-in-ice Winter Soldier.

When the explosions hit New York City, Steve isn't even surprised that he's caught up in them. He's working the day-long shift at Morgan's cafe in Midtown, supporting too many empty plates for his skinny frame and wondering how far his tips will stretch, and if they'll stretch to drinks with Sam tonight.

He's just serving a couple their joint platters of marinara-soaked chicken when a laundrette he used to go to before it shut down explodes in a fireball of glass and metal. He ducks the blast and hears the high screeches of something sharp and harsh and unhuman above him, raising his head in time to see scores of metal boards, warriors clad in armour descending on them.

"Get everybody inside!" Steve yells to Beth, the blonde girl on shift, who is already shooing the terrified customers into the restaurant and away from the streets which have become full of fire and screams before Steve can even begin to comprehend the situation fully.

Explosions begin to rain down on the street outside, and Steve curses his asthma and running speed when he feels singeing, albeit brief heat, pool across his back, as he rushes inside and slams the doors shut behind him.

Inside the restaurant, Beth is calming customers, encouraging them backwards towards the general vicinity of the kitchen, where Carl, frowning and red underneath his blonde buzzcut is marching forward. "What the Hell is going on?"

Steve opens his mouth to speak, although it really wouldn't be much more than 'I have no idea, explosions are just blowing up downtown Manhattan', when an explosion shatters the restaurant's glass front in a shower of razor-sharp shards.

And _something_ enters.

Steve sees steel and alien features and a humanoid figure, the kind he's used to sketching in his Thursday night art class; but this is nothing like the life models or statues in his class. This creature is skittering and clicking and aiming a steel rifle the size of a baseball bat right at Steve and Beth and the customers -

\- that s until an almighty arm bursts out of nowhere and _punches_ and sends the creature soaring sideways, crunching into a wall with a sickening yelp.

Steve looks up, cuts across his forehead and cheek, and finds himself staring into the hulking form of a man, silhouetted by the streaming afternoon sun. Long hair framing his face.

"Are you alri - " The man starts to ask, before the creature recovers, snarling and moaning, his gun flashing blue energy and Steve has his silver drinks tray in his hands before he can recognise it, the hooded man now sporting a nasty burn along a shoulder.

"Get down!" Steve yells and he summons every inch of strength, swinging his arm, and the tray becomes a discus as it arcs through the air, slicing through the creature's suit with a sharp clunk.

The creature slumps, the light fading fom its helmet. Steve staggers back against the counter. Behind him, he can hear Beth and Carl rushing people out of the building through the kitchen entrance. To safety. Steve stays where he is.

The man who stands up, is clad in black, A swathe of silver running down one arm, that Steve soon realises is metal; the arm that sent the creature flying. The hood of his jacket is pushed back, revealing dark hair that needs a haircut and a wash, and intense dark eyes.

Steve really hopes he didn't pick the wrong side here.

"Thanks." The man says, gruff, and staring at Steve.

"No - no problem. Always hated bullies." Steve says, standing as straight as he can with a sprained ankle and burning lungs and secondhand fear sinking into his stomach.

"Me too. Don't worry, it'll be over soon. Romanov and Barton are doing their thing." The man says.

"Who?"

"You'll find soon enough. The whole world's got a goddamn video camera." The black-clad man mutters under his breath, as if the very nature of online social media offends him to his core.

"What's your name?" Steve asks, bolder than he feels.

"Do you need to know it?"

"All the men who save me, I like to get their names."

"That happen a lot?"

"Getting saved? Not really. I can fight my own battles. I just can't... win them." Steve is highly aware of the bruise along his neck, several days old, from breaking up an abusive bar fight.

"Damn. Just... stay safe, alright, kid? We don't need anymore good people getting themselves killed today. Particularly heroes like yourself." The man looks concerned, desperately so, and he plants a solid, warm hand on Steve's shoulder. The heat burns through the tatters of Steve's shirt, and Steve wants nothing more to lean in, to steal this man's heat when Steve feels so desperately cold.

He leans in, lips brushing Steve's ear. "My name's Bucky. Don't tell a soul."

Steve blinks, then whispers back. "I promise. I'm Steve Rogers."

The man leans back, a smirk tugging at his lips. His hair is a mess, overgrown, but his eyes are intense and green and cut Steve to the core; even as he stands in what used to be his second best work pants and his white work shirt and his garish purple and gold apron. He must look a mess. Why he even cares about that around a handsome hero is... somewhat understandable under the circumstances.

"Nice to meet you, Steve Rogers. I'll make sure to keep seeing you around."

And the man is gone.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dynamic duo find their paths crossing again - admittedly in a much more relaxed context.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys - so I know this is an update LONG overdue, but I've finally find my passion for this story again, so I've got Chapter Two here. It's going to be pretty darn fluffy and this chapter is pretty darn short too. More will be coming. Hope you enjoy!

The aftermath isn't that strange, really. In comparison, anyway, to what had come before.

Steve goes back to work after two days. He spends most of the rest of that day helping the customers out of the store, and checking everyone's okay. On the news that night, he and Ashley and her boyfriend huddle around her laptop and eat everything perishable out of her fridge. They hear the body counts, the structural damage costs, everything. They fall asleep at 2am.

He keeps seeing the Avengers on TV for weeks after. New York City recovers, as it always does, fractures and tears glued together by decades-old resistance, a network of quiet strength under cynical bravado. We're New Yorkers, this is fucking nothing.

It isn't until Steve finds his Avenger - and Bucky is definitely not his Avenger, not even according to his late-night, less-than-sober musings - sat on the fire escape of his building, cut up and bruised to Hell.

"Um. Excuse me?"

Bucky looks down and Steve points out the plants growing out on the fire escape. "You're kind of bleeding over my aloe vera."

"You shouldn't be blocking fire escapes with your shrubs."

"Firstly, you can move past them in a second. Secondly, you're literally moping on them. You're a bigger obstacle than my plants."

Bucky snorts with laughter, then squints at Steve, who wraps the Ikea blanket tighter around his chest. It's a bitingly cold tonight and he doesn't want to catch his death. "Aren't you my kid from the cafe a few weeks ago?"

Steve blushes ardently at 'my kid', but recovers. "Yeah. I remember. Thanks, by the way."

"You already said thanks."

"No, I didn't. I mean, you did, when I saved your ass from that flying metal... whatever it was. But I didn't get a chance to say thank you. We'd have all been dead if it weren't for you."

"You did save me, huh?" Bucky stands, then descends the staircase, so that he's on Steve's level. He hunkers down until he's sitting on the metal grating outside Steve's window. They're almost eye to eye. "So then, Steve Rogers, what have you been up to?"

"Work. Helping with the rebuilding efforts. They don't have much use for someone with asthma, but I can make sandwiches and lift boxes and bandage people plenty. Why are you bleeding?"

Bucky waves it off, unfazed. "Small mutant problem. Sorry: Inhumans. Can't call 'em mutants anymore. You live here?"

"No, I decided to break into an apartment, strip down to my underwear, and then take up a conversation with one of the nation's heroes." Steve drawls. Then: "Wait, Inhumans?"

"Don't worry 'bout it. Anyway, I'll leave you to your bad Chinese food and re-runs."  
Steve approaches further, offended. "Golden Imperial is amazing Chinese. Best egg drop soup in the whole of Brooklyn."

Bucky snorts. "You're so wrong it's embarrassing. Mei's on the corner of Sandford has not only the best egg drop soup but also the best dumplings. No contest."

"Jerk. Pretty confident."

"Likewise, punk." Bucky's smile turns into an inviting smirk. "Wanna wager?"

 

* * *

 

 

An hour later, Steve has Bucky inside his apartment, two sets of cool but delicious Chinese cuisine on Steve's rickety wooden coffee table, in front of them on the couch. Steve had offered Bucky the use of his shower (the smell of drying blood, coppery and salty alike, had lingered), and he had declined, opting instead to wash his injuries and the congealed blood off in Steve's tiny, chipped sink.

"See," Bucky says, through a mouthful of dripping jiaozi dumplings. "Best in Brooklyn."

They are good, Steve concedes, but he's not Sarah Rogers' son if he's not going to go down without a fight. "They're alright."

"Clearly I have much to teach you, padawan." The line is a little stiff from Bucky, as if he's only just hearing the joke, but Steve still rolls his eyes and smiles, and Bucky's smile crinkles the corners of his eyes.

Steve looks down to Bucky's arm, resting carefully along the back of the couch. It's all metal, shine dulled a little from the crusted over blood, and Steve wants to run his fingers along the ridges of it, up to where the flesh of Bucky's arm fuses with the steel.

Bucky catches him looking at it, and retracts the arm, a frown flickering across his face. "Sorry."

"No!" The apology bursts out of Steve. "It's not - I didn't - I didn't mean to make you comfortable, it's just... I've not seen it up close before."

Bucky pauses. His body is tense a little, like a rabbit in the sniper sights, waiting to leap for freedom. Slowly he relaxes and offers Steve his arm. "Have at it, punk."

Steve carefully lifts and examines the arm. The metal shuttering at the elbow, the intricate whorls. He finds a tiny patch of letters that look Cyrillic at the back of Bucky's wrist. Steve spends time touching the scarlet star on his upper arm. Bucky keeps looking ahead, as if the years-old rerun of "Portlandia" is the most interesting thing in the world.

"You gonna draw me?" Steve looks up sharply. Bucky is pointing at one of the sketchbooks Steve had shoved aside for room on the dining table. A sketch of Ashley is on one open page, a half-formed cityscape is on the adjacent page.

Steve opens his mouth to answer - just as Bucky's cell phone rings.

He digs it out of his tattered uniform with an apologetic grimace and answers it. "Tasha, I'm fine. I just - "

Steve can't quite make out what the woman - Tasha, he supposes - says next, but Bucky nods. "Yeah. Sure. Be there in twenty."

Bucky hangs up, then looks to Steve. "Sorry. Duty and debrief calls. You alright if I - "

"Yes, go, it's fine." Steve smiles. "My virtue shall remain protected."

Bucky quirks an eyebrow but says nothing as he strides over to the window and slides it open. Steve follows him, blanket around his shoulders.

"Maybe." Steve says.

"What?"

"Maybe I'll - I'll draw you. If you don't get yourself killed."

Bucky blinks, then grins, as pale and wolfish as the full moon. "Promise?"

Steve shrugs, then nods.

"Good. See you around then, punk."

Steve doesn't have time to reply - _you jerk_ , he thinks fondly - before Bucky jumps and twists off the fire escape, flipping neatly to land on the street below, leaving Steve behind with cooling Chinese food and dreams of a scarlet star, set into a man made of metal.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A:AOU happens and Steve has moderately bad luck and an increasingly concerned Bucky to handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been gestating for a little bit, and I wanted to get a quick short chapter in. This was inspired a bit by watching Age of Ultron for the first time since I saw in cinemas last year, and Bucky's growing overprotectiveness. Next chapter will be longer and have more elements going into it. Hope you enjoy!

Life goes on.

Steve downloads an app to his older-generation smartphone that helps track the Avengers, and checks in on Bucky whenever he thinks about him. Which is, it turns out, a couple of times a day. Bucky sometimes disappears from the app's radar, but usually bounces around Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The metal robots incident in New York is... annoying, more than anything.

Outside of Sokovia, the robots only manage to land four or five in each major city, meaning that Steve has the worst luck in all five boroughs when one chooses to fire upon his restaurant. Everyone's fine, but it doesn't mean when the robot suddenly collapses, lifeless, there's not a rush to kick the crap out of it before Stark Industries men comes to collect them.

It's two days following that, that Bucky finds Steve sitting in Central Park, working on his portfolio of landscapes. The air is warm for spring, even more so for April, and Steve is enjoying the day.

"Hey punk."

Bucky sits down beside him and Steve instantly recoils a little. Bucky's face is bruised to hell, with a pair of black eyes and a butterfly stitch across half of his forehead. He looks like he got the stuffing beaten out of him and then placed back in by unsteady hands.

"Jesus. I heard it was bad, but..."

"Nothing we couldn't handle. More worried about you." Bucky grins. "Had a feeling you couldn't stay out of trouble."

"I can totally stay out of trouble." Then, Bucky's gaze on him, he babbles: "Okay. fine, one robot got us, but it was fine and we felt much better by kicking the shit out of it. Then we had babka cake and I got to leave early."

Bucky's hand comes to rest on Steve's neck, fingers curving around to the back of his neck, squeezing. "Christ. I need to get you a bell or something. Make sure I can keep an eye on you."

Steve feels strange and warm, at the feel of Bucky's fingers on his neck. In front of them, kids run in the park in their spring coats, and people eat their lunches and read the newspaper on benches. None of them are really noticing Bucky, with his hair tied back in a bun, and his prosthetic metal arm hidden inside his jacket.

"I'd say likewise, but you guys are all... saving-the-world-y."

"Please," says Bucky, "you're the one helping keep New York safe. You're a goddamn hero."

"I'm not," Steve says, flushing with embarrassment, because Steve has asthma and never outgrew his scrawny phase, and he's the complete opposite of someone like Bucky, someone cool and confident and powerful.

"You arguing with me about this?" Bucky's eyes crinkle at the corners and Steve feels relieved to break the tension by nudging Bucky's shoulder with his own.

"Only because you need it, you lunk," Steve retorts, and Bucky laughs, a clear, crisp sound. A flock of pigeons descend from the air and coo at the two men feeding them the crusts from their sandwiches on the bench opposite Steve and Bucky.

"Natasha'd love ya," Bucky says, and Steve gapes for a half-second because Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow herself, would like him, and that's something a bit swoon-worthy.

"You've got be joking," says Steve. "You're all like - like, super spies and gods and geniuses, and I'm a waiter. I have less than zero in common with you all."

"You gotta stop being so hard on yourself," Bucky says, eyes like embers.

"Or what? You'll make me?"

Bucky shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips, full of mischief. "Maybe I outta."

Bucky leaves moments later, a call coming in on his Stark Industries cellphone, with an apology to Steve. He also makes sure to write his private cell phone number down on the back of Steve's sketch, in chunky block numbers.

And that's how, three days later, Steve sort of becomes the Avengers' new best friend.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve joins the gang both very quickly and to his utter surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter four is here! I wanted to bring Steve into the fold and get him entrenched quickly in Avengers life. As for what this means for him and Bucky... who knows? Enjoy.

It all occurs, as it does, when Steve gives in to sentimentality. After Bucky drops in on him, he starts leaving his fire escape window slightly ajar. Not fully open, of course, because he lives in Brooklyn and he has a baseball bat under his bed for emergencies, but enough that Bucky could slip in if he wanted.

Not that he would want to or anything.

Instead, Steve returns home from his shift at the cafe - freshly painted and restored after the metal robots thing - one arm full of groceries and a fresh refill on his inhaler, to find Bucky and another man bleeding on his floor.

"Well, shit," Steve says, setting down his brown paper bags carefully by the door as he closes it. He spies Mrs Cardenas across the hall opening her door to check up on him, and he doesn't want her to panic.

The newcomer is vaguely handsome and bloodied, with a shock of scruffy blond hair, and keeps covering one ear, and then the other, with the palm of his hand. That, and the black (and maybe purple, Steve spies) bodysuit clicks him into place for Steve.

"Is he Hawkeye? Like the real, real Hawkeye?"

Bucky nods, a little sheepishly if anything, and says, "Sorry, we were nearby and ran into some trouble and here's the closest place I could think of. He just needs somewhere to regain his footing."

Steve nods and bends down to catch the eyesight of Hawkeye - Clint Barton. Steve digs through his memories and unearths the ASL hand signals for 'You alright, buddy?'

Clint stops, looking at Steve's hands and smile, and then nods and visibly relaxes. He signs back, 'Lost my aid in a fight. Messed up my equilibrium.'

Steve smiles back reassuringly and bends down to pick up his paper bags - only to find Bucky standing with them held in the crook of his arm. "Thanks," Steve says, "you can help me unpack."

The rest of the evening unfolds with Bucky fielding calls from a number of concerned people in the tiny earpiece in his right ear, several from someone called Natasha, and Steve packing away his groceries and giving Clint hot tea and letting him watch back-to-back episodes of "Gravity Falls" with the subtitles on.

Two hours later, Steve opens the door to a beautiful redhead in sweatpants and flawless nail polish, who looks him up and down as she sweeps inside and says, "So you're Bucky's boy."

Steve blushes volcanic hot and opens his mouth to protest, but then he realises it's Natasha Romanoff, the freakin' Black Widow herself, who is settling down beside Hawkeye on his ratty couch.

"Natasha," Bucky warns, and Natasha quirks her immaculate eyebrow at Bucky.

"Oh, come on, he's been veted ever since New York. He's clean, he's fine. Fury's all but said so," she says. Natasha turns to Clint who tears his eyes away from the adventures of the Pine twins.

"You need to take your spare, idiot," Natasha says, handing Clint a small pair of tiny buds the size of pushpin heads, that Clint takes gratefully and places inside his ears, twisting them a little to make them fit.

"Aw, shut up, Tash," Clint says, his voice modulating a little until it evens out into a comfortable drawl. "Embarrassing me."

Natasha's attention flits over to Bucky, who has edged over to Steve's side. "You done here, slick? Or you wanna bring him back to base?"

And that, thanks to Steve's too-quick mouth, is how he ends up sandwiched on a plush couch in Stark Tower (or 'Avengers Tower', as some media reports have insisted on dubbing it), between the God of Thunder and Natasha, while an assembled group of SHIELD members, Avengers, and their significant others, hang out.

It's... surreal, to say the least.

Thor pokes Steve in the shoulder with a meaty finger and grins, "Have you partaken in Lady Natasha's fortified ale? It is mightily hearty, even for an Asgardian."

"No, I'm good, thanks," Steve replies, beaming. This is surreal. This is - it might not even be happening, Steve considers, and is almost at the verge of pinching himself, when Clint, resting against Natasha's sweatpant-clad legs, hands over the XBox controller to her. He offers a second one to Steve.

"I suck at Mario Kart, and Stark has pizza round three coming soon," Clint says, standing to wander into the kitchen pre-emptively.

"He's something," Natasha says, smiling at Steve. "You in?"

Steve nods and looks across the living area to where Bucky is sat, talking quietly with Tony Stark and Pepper Potts (Steve recognises them both from CNN and C-SPAN). Bucky looks right at him and smiles warmly. Steve glows a little under that smile.

It only grows when he trounces Natasha in Mario Kart, to Clint's glee and Thor's surprise ("Lady Tasha is a marvel at this pasttime but you have beat her most resoundly!").

Natasha turns to Steve, her mouth a comma of impressed affection in the curve of an almost-smile, says, "We're keeping you then. Welcome to the club." Thor crows and wraps a heavy arm around Steve's shoulders in celebration.

Steve catches Bucky's eye and blushes fiercely, and, despite the hammering of his heart, sets the game up for round two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter five will be coming soon, I promise - I just need to bring together some plot elements and deal with real life. See you next time and thanks so much for reading!


End file.
